


A shadow you won't recognize

by Amanda312



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Ana Maria Castillo Ruíz aka the biological mom i just made for Diego, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, mentions of childhood trauma, other Hargreeves siblings show up too but briefly
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-04-26
Packaged: 2020-02-04 20:03:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18611539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amanda312/pseuds/Amanda312
Summary: Allison answers the door to the Academy to find Diego's biological mother looking for him. But how will Diego feel about meeting the woman who gave him away?





	A shadow you won't recognize

**Author's Note:**

> Just FYI, Diego only appears in the second chapter.

The apocalypse was near and Five summoned all of his siblings to the Academy, ready to discuss a new plan. It was hard to be sure if everyone would show up but, at this point, they were all paying attention to their kid-elderly-time-jumping brother’s warnings. Luther was already there and Allison had just arrived when they heard the doorbell. 

That wasn’t supposed to be so surprising, but such an ordinary event was actually pretty uncommon for the dysfunctional super family. Nobody but the Hargreeves siblings ever visited the Academy, and they never announced themselves. No knocking, no doorbells, they just walked in. And nobody else approached. Something about the mansion, maybe the stories about the dangerous child-superheroes, maybe the strange atmosphere of the place, kept everyone away. There was no trick or treats, no curious eyes. Sir Reginald Hargreeves knew how to set boundaries, and the world respected them.

Five’s train of thought was almost visible, as he checked everyone’s position and thought of the possible enemies or tricks the Handler could send their way. Luther frowned at the door and started to walk towards the entrance, but Allison stepped in front of him. They had a silent discussion and ended up going together, with Five right behind them, all three very tense and ready to attack. It could be nothing. Maybe one of their brothers suddenly developed manners, or some girl scout was careless enough to offer them cookies. Maybe it was some disturbing posthumous delivery from their father. Maybe it was a time traveling assassin or a random villain wanting revenge.

Allison reached for the door and opened it carefully, with her brothers very near. An anxious-looking woman waited outside. She was Latina and seemed to be in her 50s, at most. The woman held an old piece of Umbrella Academy merchandise, a poster of a young Diego. She stared at the three of them with some sort of relieved recognition in her disturbingly familiar dark eyes and said, in a small but firm voice: 

“I’m looking for my son”.

Okay, that was unexpected. It left Allison, of all people, completely wordless for half a minute. The women just stared at each other, both very surprised that this was actually happening. For one of them, it was the peak of a lifelong journey. For the other, perhaps one more sign that the world was truly ending. Then, Allison turned calmly to her brothers.

“She is harmless. I got this.”

Neither of them felt the need to disagree. Five was a bit wary, though a second look to the woman made him decide it was not worth his efforts, and he went back inside with a ‘none of my business’ shrug, Luther seemed confused and awkward, but he saw that the lady offered no danger. And he definitely was not the best person to handle the situation. So, he told Allison to call if she needed him, and pretty much ran away from the tiny woman at their door. That left her and Allison alone. She keep her posture, perfectly patient as she wait for the Hargreeves to decide who would deal with her, but it was easy to see how important this was to her. She could hardly contain herself as she eagerly showed Allison the poster.

“Do you know where my son is? He used to fight with you.”

Yes, Allison had definitely fought along with Diego, a long time ago. They were never the closest to each other but he was still her brother, annoying and reckless, filled with some raw kind of sensibility that you didn’t see at first glance. And he was so attached to Grace, more than any of the others, since the first time they met her. He was the first to call her Mom, and still the one to check on her most often. Even while everyone was gone and Sir Reginald was still alive, Diego would sneak in without his father noticing, just to talk to his mom for a bit. Allison had even met him there once, when she took a two month old Claire for their parents to meet. That was the only time Diego had seen his niece, and he had smiled to himself at Grace’s happiness to hold the baby. 

All of the Hargreeves kids were always lacking the affection of a real parent, with Grace and Pogo being the closest they got to that. But the AI mom and the advanced chimpanzee didn’t have much of a saying when Reginald chose to teach the children his lessons, leaving lasting scars. Diego was the one to most openly show the need for a real, good parent. He held on to Grace since he was little and he still looked at her with the love of a son, so fiercely defensive of her, so caring. Diego truly loved Mom. He was the one to make her their mom, not just one more scared babysitter. And now, shortly after their father’s passing, the woman who sold him to Reginald Hargreeves was standing at the Academy’s doors. 

Allison decided to start at the basics, ignoring the lady’s question for a minute so she could think of how to approach it.

“Who are you, ma’am?”

“My name is Ana Maria Castillo Ruíz. I had a baby on October 1st, 1989. I was 18 years old.”

Allison just nodded, encouraging her to go on. For a second, she thought of her own biological mother, but she quickly brushed the thoughts away. There was no way she would be able to think about that now. Ana Maria continued.

“I didn’t have a husband. I only had my parents. They were not... not very happy when I had a baby, without even having a pregnancy. I didn’t want to give him away, I didn’t want to... but they gave him to a very rich man, a man who lived here. They said that I didn’t want that for my life. They tried to convince me it was better for the boy, too, to grow up here, with that man and all the money. They also didn’t think the baby meant something good, appearing out of nowhere. I know they were right, a bit. I studied and became an English teacher in Mexico. I got married and I had children… Other children. My life would have been very different if he stayed with me, and I love my family very much, but at least I would have raised him. And he is my family too. He is my child too. 

I couldn’t come here while that man was alive. We knew he was very dangerous. But I saved money, I got my visa and I waited. I saw you all grow up, on tv, and in comic books. I saw my boy fighting crime here. I was afraid for him, but I was proud, and I thought of him every day. Then I saw the news that the rich man had passed. Now, I’m here and I want to see my son. Can you get him for me, Miss Allison?”

Allison’s head was spinning. She thought of what it would feel like to have Claire taken from her as a newborn - to not even be recognized by her. Being separated from her daughter was the hardest thing that ever happened to her, in a life that was never easy, and she could barely imagine what Ana Maria felt like for all this years. The lady seemed to be unfazed by the extraordinary. If she knew Allison’s name, she probably remembered Five’s face too. And she didn’t bat an eye when she saw this 13 year old who was supposed to be Allison’s age. To be fair, Ana Maria had given birth 30 years before, without being pregnant when the day began, and then she saw her baby be sold to a billionaire, grow up abroad as a knife-throwing superhero kid, and then pretty much disappear from the eyes of the media once he became an adult. 

But the biggest question here was not about Ana Maria’s reactions to Allison’s bizarre family. It was Diego’s possible reaction to Ana Maria. Allison was not sure if it would even be fair to him, to have him meet his birth mom now, after all the years of trauma, after transferring all his love to Grace, after the shadow of Reginald was as gone as he would ever be. Now, when the world was about to end, as far as they knew. At the same time, though, if the world did end in a few days, then this was Ana Maria’s last chance to see the son she missed for three decades. She came all the way here, after planning for his entire life, always searching for a way to be reunited with him. 

But then again, maybe she didn’t fully understand the impact of her parents’ actions on Diego’s life. They even seemed to believe the life in the Academy would be the best for him. She called Reginald a dangerous man, but did she know how dangerous he was to his own children? As an outsider, like the rest of the world, how much could she really know about the abuse they went through? Could she imagine the extent of the horrors that the Hargreeves siblings would always carry? 

Wouldn’t that crush her even more, knowing her son had been through hell since he was a baby, because of a decision she fought against but couldn’t really stop? Maybe it was crueler to the both of them if they met. Maybe the kindest thing to do was to tell her to go away, never letting Diego know this even happened. She had to be quick, though, because he could arrive at the Academy at any moment, expecting a different kind of family reunion.

All of this went through her head in about a minute and, in the end, she knew it wasn’t her choice to make. But it wasn’t a good idea to just let Ana Maria surprise Diego, without any previous clues to how he would take it. So she did a crazy thing, which seemed to be the only thing possible.

“Diego might come here today, but I need to be honest. He might not want to meet you, and I have to ask him about it first. Would you like to wait inside?

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure if this is actually a good idea or if I can write this characters well. Also not sure about my english or about the writing. Still, it's here. Please let me know what you think of it. The title is from 20 years by The Civil Wars.


End file.
